Bonita Springs land being offered to conservation program for third time

CHARLIE WHITEHEAD

6:41 PM, Feb 10, 2010

7:40 PM, Feb 10, 2010

When the owners tried to sell their 44-acre tract of land in northeast Bonita Springs to Lee County's Conservation 2020 program in 1999, the sale fell apart.

The offer, then-owner John Mauriel of Medina, Minn., said, was too low.

That was three owners ago. In Southwest Florida, real estate was a different world back then. The original 1999 asking price was $18,000 per acre. Conservation 2020, fueled by a property tax voters approved in 1996, buys property only at below market value prices, and the offer was declined.

In 2001 the offer was changed. The offer was for 20 percent below market value, which according to tax records would have been $5,886 per acre or $258,999.

As negotiations lagged, Mauriel withdrew his offer in 2003. He had good reason. A Naples syndicate paid him just more than $1 million for the property in May 2004.

That syndicate turned around and sold it for about the same money to Rev. Barton McIntyre, who had plans for a boarding school there. Those plans fell apart with the real estate market and the property was taken back by the Bank of Florida in Immokalee. It's the bank that's offering it to the county now. The bank wants $1.1 million or $25,000 per acre.

"I'm real, real pleased to have it back," said Cullum Hasty, a Bonita resident and a member of the Conservation 2020 committee. "We just reapproved it for the highest priority list."

That's the highest priority for 2011. With tax revenue dwindling, last year county commissioners gave the committee a list of priority properties — the A List, Hasty said — that should be bought first. Program director Lynda Thompson said that list could be checked off by the end of 2010, leaving 2011 revenue for the new list.

"None of the properties on the B List have gone through secondary review," Thompson said. "We know at this point it's one of five priorities."

Actually the bank property has been through secondary review. It's a choice piece, surrounded on three sides by preserve. To the north and east is Pine Lake Preserve, a 131-acre Conservation 2020 property bought in 2000 for $1.95 million. To the south is the Bonita Nature Place, a city preserve.

"It floated up with the market, and it floated up too high," Hasty said. "It was on the high priority list before, but it was outrageous. Now the bank doesn't want it and they've got it almost down to market value."

Thompson said it would be great to add the 44 acres to the Pine Lake Preserve.

"There's a long, long history to this, and all along, the property has been very desirable," she said. "Expanding the existing preserve would be a good thing. It's uplands. There's the old borrow pit that could be used for fishing. It's close to an urban area."

Simons said that she sees the property as key to connecting the city preserve with the county land, which itself connects to South Florida Water Management District conservation land farther east.

"In the great scheme of things this is part of what I see as the Bonita Greenway," she said. "It preserves the headwaters of the (Imperial) river, and it's habitat. There's also an opportunity for Conservation 2020 to have negotiating power."

The bank will be motivated to get rid of the land, Simons said, and the county could get a good price.

"I'm also thrilled to see us get some of our money back," she said.

The Conservation 2020 committee meets at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The meeting takes place in the Public Works Building in downtown Fort Myers.